"he's real smart with a real big heart, and he's gonna marry me"

So in roughly four months I'm due to take the plunge into matrimony. It's the most important day of my life and not such a big deal all at one time. While I have a deep, sentimental appreciation for the wedding day, I fervently believe it's how you live all of the days afterward that means the most. In some ways I think marriage is a lot like matriculation: you work hard to get the diploma and enjoy the day you throw your mortarboard in the air...but if sincere consideration and continued investment aren't committed to for the future, then really all you have is a piece of paper and an old robe.

All that being said, I think I've done moderately well with the planning and teensy budget thus far, but as the red-letter day arrives, I've become acutely aware of what has to be done still. Regardless of the not-shrinking-fast-enough to-do list, I enjoy molding the events of the day into my vision for how it should happen. With my fiancee', of course. Laugh all you want, but he's been extremely involved to date, and I think he's had a pretty good time with it. I'm not a big believer in the theory that all the groom has to do is show up and say, "I do."

I keep getting pressure from unnamed parties to relinquish these duties and let "the adults" handle it. And here I thought at 30 I'd finally be considered an adult. Silly me. It's been the sore spot of planning since the beginning, but chip on my shoulder has amassed into a gigantic, mountainous boulder. Being innately pascifist, I haven't mustered the cajones to confront...err, I mean discuss, my feelings with said parties. This personality flaw has bitten my behind more than I care to remember throughout life, yet I never seem to learn. I'm so Switzerland.

I'm trying to remain happy and hopeful in the fact that, no matter what happens between now and the nuptials - and whatever happens that glorious day - the end result will be something greater that I could have ever imagined or hoped for. After four years I'm still delighted by this man and eager to grow together for many more years to come.

That is, if he doesn't have to visit me through the iron bars at a maximum security unit after I'm convicted of manslaughter.